The Great Waltzes: The Essential Collection
Full track listing at end of review
rec. dates and locations not provided
NAXOS 8.578041-42 [70:47 + 76:50]

This is a very well-chosen budget-priced selection of “The
Great Waltzes”. Indeed, almost all other compilation albums
of this type would drive me to distraction with obvious items
omitted; this is one ‘hits’ collection which did not make me
pull out a pad and paper and begin plotting out my own list
of “great waltzes”. To be honest, I requested to review this
set partly in anticipation of the frustrating, geeky, but curiously
enjoyable hours I would waste deciding what would make the cut
on my own “Great Waltzes” disc and how much music would fit
on each disc.

But that did not happen. Naxos has really chosen an intelligent
menu of twenty waltzes for this two-disc set, and programmed
them wisely. The creators have astutely limited the amount of
Johann Strauss present to give a more diverse picture, and also
because a set of “Great Strauss Waltzes” would run to five or
six discs. I can only really think of two waltzes I would put
on a “twenty best” list which are not here: Carl Maria von Weber’s
Invitation to the Dance and Maurice Ravel’s genre-busting
La valse.

Lehár’s Gold and Silver leads off; we’ve got waltzes
from three Tchaikovsky ballets, his Serenade for Strings, and
Eugene Onegin; Johann Strauss makes five appearances;
Aram Khachaturian gets to put a word in; and everything is capped
off by the first waltz sequence from Der Rosenkavalier,
by the other Strauss, Richard. There are also three “one hit
wonder” composers: Adolphe Adam’s Giselle is honored,
as is Iosif Ivanovici’s Danube Waves, and Émile Waldteufel’s
lovely Les patineurs which is joined, surprisingly, by
three considerably less famous Waldteufel tunes. The obscurities,
it turns out, are just as enjoyable, although their big tunes
perhaps slip a little more easily out of the memory. I found
them a pleasant surprise.

As for the performances: anybody familiar with Marco Polo’s
enormous discography of Viennese dance music will know roughly
what to expect. They are good, and very danceable, but not world-class
by any means in the departments of glamour, sparkle, or personality.
All but four of the selections feature the Slovak Philharmonic,
the Slovak State Philharmonic, the Slovak Radio Symphony, and
the (Slovakian) Strauss Festival Orchestra, ensembles which,
along with the Slovak Sinfonietta, my father calls collectively
the “Bratislava Kitchen Ensemble.” It’s unfair because they
most certainly are not playing in a kitchen, but they are not
the best ensembles ever to tackle this music, the conductors
were sometimes poor (Alfred Walter was frankly dire), the engineers
who recorded them did not always do a flattering job, and the
original releases sometimes had a faint air of desperation about
them. “Johann Strauss’ Most Famous Waltzes”, from the early
1990s, optimistically changed conductor Ondrej Lenárd’s first
name to André.

The shortcomings are especially obvious on CD 1, tracks 2-4,
three waltzes which really emphasize the French horn (Tchaikovsky’s
“Waltz of the Flowers,” Strauss’ Blue Danube, Waldteufel’s
Les patineurs). The Slovak horns of three different orchestras
present these main tunes in typically wobbly fashion deep in
the muddy slosh of the acoustics, making these the most pedestrian
performances in the set.

On the other hand, all of the works are paced well – perfect,
as I noted, for actually dancing. And there are genuinely good
performances here: Tales from the Vienna Woods is well-done
by Ondrej Lenárd (sans zither, though), Andrew Mogrelia’s
expertise in ballet makes the extract from Sleeping Beauty
a delight, and the two Lehár pieces are very well done. I do
regret to report, though, that Strauss’s humungous, indeed symphony-sized
introduction to Wine, Women, and Song has been cut out.

One more regret, and it is a major one: the first run of discs
released, including my review copy, accidentally omitted Ivanovici’s
Danube Waves, instead substituting a re-run Lehár’s Gold
and Silver. I have notified Naxos and they have taken immediate
action; all digital and downloadable copies contain the right
files, and subsequent printings of the discs will be corrected.
That first batch, though, might still be on shelves. Digression:
In the mid-1990s, I picked up a two-cassette pack of Johann
Strauss hits and discovered that, through a printing error,
the “Treasure Waltz” was included no fewer than three times!

This is a good introductory set for those newcomers who want
a waltz fix. It is a very good, cheap album for people learning
to waltz who want some background music for their lessons. As
an introduction to specific composers or styles, though, The
Great Waltzes falls short. If you want two discs to sum
up the spirit of Vienna, for example, find the two “Carlos Kleiber
conducts Strauss” discs recorded at the 1989 and 1992 Vienna
Philharmonic New Year’s Concerts, the best Strauss programs
I know. Naxos Historical has an excellent “Lehár Conducts Lehár”
CD with many of that composer’s classic waltzes and overtures.
In March of this year, I gave a delighted review
to a Johann Strauss Society CD of music by Iosif Ivanovici,
which proved that “Danube Waves” is just the beginning of his
marvelous output.

As one-stop shopping for the waltz novice, though, this is a
handy, well-curated selection. It is also a useful survey of
Marco Polo’s vast dance music collection. If Naxos ever wants
a two-disc set of the forgotten Viennese masterworks,
I hope they will contact me. I know where a few of the best
treasures are hidden: the utterly ingenious Ritter Pasman
Waltz on Johann Strauss Edition Volume 26, the indeed droll
Drollery Polka one volume later, the Seid Umschlungen,
Millionen waltz (dedicated to Brahms) on Volume 19, Franz
von Suppé’s frantic little Tantalusqualen overture, or
the two waltzes Karel Komzák dedicated to various girls of his
acquaintance. If you like what you hear on The Great Waltzes,
there’s an impressively huge body of work waiting to be discovered
out there. And if you really are just discovering the joy of
the waltz, I envy you for the delights you are about to encounter!

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